Gaming machines are found in casinos and amusement arcades and offer entertainment and gaming pleasure to many people. Various gaming machines are popular with the gaming public. Reel slot machines have several rotating reels with various play icons arranged in the display panel's viewing windows or electronically on display screens. In some reel slot machines other display media can be represented as rotating to output a game win when the reels remain standing with identical play icons along a pay line. Poker slot machines enable virtual poker play. Betting slot machines enable bets to be placed on events, for example, sporting performances.
Gaming machines are typically constructed as floor-mounted appliances, being stationary units and having a front side of which an interface is provided. In some cases, there is more than one interface in the upper section of the housing so that they can be observed or tracked from an operator's station in front of the housing.
An operator's panel included in the interface typically includes several control buttons are provided below at least one display. The operator's panel may be a touch screen, or other interface element, at about the ventral height of a player standing in front of the device. Control buttons may be manually operated and may serve, among other things, to set reels of a reel slot machine in motion, or to stop them. The device's various functional building blocks, like the game controller, a currency authentication device, and/or a currency collection apparatus, can be accommodated within the housing's interior.
These kinds of gaming and entertainment devices are routinely set up in large groups in a casino or in an amusement arcade. In this context, the devices can be arranged in a row next to one another or arranged radially, in a star-shaped manner, around a column. To make a particular gaming device successful in the sense that it is selected by many players for playing, it is routinely attempted to distinguish the gaming device from the mass of neighbouring gaming devices via light effects and the like, to direct the attention of as many players as possible on itself.
It is known to create light effects in different ways in this context. For instance, multicoloured light sources, like LEDs, are routinely placed on the front side of the housing to emit multicoloured light beams into the space in front of the gaming device in which the operator is standing respectively a potential operator runs by. On the other hand, lights blinking in the fashion of lighthouse lights are also known to be positioned on the upper side of the devices. These shine a periodically rotating light beam into the room area.
A gaming device of the kind named at the beginning is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 7,048,631 B2. A light display is provided on the device's front side to display game information. The light display employs a refractive, transparent plate into which light of various colours can be fed from various directions. The light then passes through the transparent plate and emerges refracted at a predetermined emersion point. The intent is to create many kinds of gaming information in the form of light signals via light refraction. However, the increase achieved in the gaming device's attractiveness is limited because the light signals or light effects are only really visible when the player is already standing at the gaming device and using it. Moreover, the light signals are of rather low range and limited luminosity. This renders them perceptible in only a limited way to passing players.
WO 2007/032784 describes a gaming device with a backlit display, the brightness of which is variably controlled. In this context, ambient light is measured using light sensors to set the backlit display brighter or darker as a function of the ambient light.
Still there is a need for an improved gaming machine which enhances the prior art in an advantageous way.